I am constantly amazed at the bad information I see and read regarding digital gold or digital gold currency.

Senior Fellow, Director of International Economics and quite possibly the hardest working man over at the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr. Benn Steil, mentioned digital gold more than two years ago in his article, "Digital gold and a flawed global order". He offered a positive viewpoint and forward looking statements regarding the future of digital gold. Here is what Mr. Steil had to say:

Digitized commodity money may then be in store for us. Gold banks already exist that allow clients to make and receive digital gold payments—a form of electronic money, backed by gold in storage—around the globe. The business has grown significantly in recent years, in tandem with the dollar´s decline. As radical and implausible as it may sound, digitizing the earth´s 2,500-year experiment with commodity money may ultimately prove far more sustainable than our recent 35-year experiment with monetary sovereignty.

However, in the recent news headlines, it seems that not everyone completely understands Digital Gold Currency and the powerful role it can play in everyday commerce.

How did Mr. Chapman, or anyone for that matter, get the ridiculous idea that Digital Gold Currency is big government´s global tool to control and spy on the population?

Who said that digital gold will allow governments to control every aspect of my life? Ridiculous!

In the past decade, Digital Gold Currency has been a safe private banking and commerce financial tool for millions of users. It has only been, in just the last 36 months, that the U.S. Government has made an attempt to regulate its use within their borders. The wild prediction that there could, should or would ever be ONLY one digital world currency backed by gold is laughable.

Private Digital Gold Currency companies have been in operation for more than ten years. DGC (digital gold currency) is a private value transfer solution which is always issued by a business and not a government agency.

Digital gold is an everyday guaranteed solution to the never ending problems of inflated national currency. DGC is NOT government issued legal tender.

Yes, on a global scale, there could be one financial category known as "digital gold currency" however that category could contain thousands of private brand name gold currencies. Here are some examples:

GoldMoney gold grams

e-dinar (digital gold dinar and silver dirham)

Pecunix grams

iGolder gold grams

Webmoney WMG purse gold grams

c-gold grams

CryptoBullionReserve GoldGrams

GoldNowBanc GoldGrams

PC GoldGrams

Gold-Pay grams

Wontongold Grams

These are all currently functioning private Digital Gold Currencies.

Digital gold is unlike national currency. In the case of government issued paper money, one U.S. Dollar does NOT equal the value of one euro, yen, ruble or pound. National paper currency has floating exchange rates. However, one gram of digital gold always equals one gram of any other digital gold in any other country around the world. Gold is universally accepted by weight, no matter what brand name it holds. Gold backed digital units are the perfect candidate for a global digital currency.

One Gram = 1 gram = one gram

A digital gram of "Bob´s USA Gold" is identical to one gram of "Benson & Co.s" Singapore digital gold, which is also guaranteed to be exactly the same as a gram of "Amr´s XtraOrbit Egyptian" digital gold. Any private currency backed by gold can be easily exchanged for any other digital gold currency with no loss from exchange rates or additional fees which are always present with a paper currency exchange.

The concept of one global currency backed by gold should not mean ONE government issued digital currency. A global digital currency backed by gold should be understood to mean thousands of privately issued gold currencies or brands of currency. The public needs to recognize that digital gold currency is already in use today around the globe, it is NOT some devil which government henchmen dreamed up to control the masses. Digital gold is a private banking solution which offer extraordinary personal security and protection from inflation.

We are hearing more and more about digital gold as a private-bank solution to potential devaluation of fiat currencies. The May/June issue of the CFR´s, Foreign Affairs magazine, Benn Steil a senior fellow and director of International Economics, who has been on loan from the parent Royal Institute in London since 1996, says digital gold, "although a niche business at present, gold banking has grown dramatically in recent years in tandem with the dollar´s decline." Mr. Steil was the Illuminist who drew up the plans for the North American Union and the Amero. If there is digital gold out there somewhere we haven´t heard about it.

The new approach to a world currency obviously will be digital gold. This way they can introduce a one-world currency backed by gold to make it acceptable to the world public. The digital nature means government would know every aspect of your financial life and would control you and your country. The gold storage would, of course, be controlled by the Illuminists. The elitists have come to the conclusion another fiat currency is not going to be acceptable. This is why JP Morgan Chase, Citicorp and Goldman Sachs talk in terms of $2,000 gold and UBS projects $2,500. Historically such benchmarks are usually and normally exceeded by prices from $3,000 to $7,000.

When did Digital Gold become big government´s tool for spying?

Here a newsflash, the government already keeps a very close watch on the population through bank accounts and credit cards. Since 9/11 U.S. government agencies already, "...know every aspect of your financial life... and control you and your country" as Bob states. Digital gold won´t bring government agencies any further into your bedroom than they already are, that is an outright lie.

Bob also makes this statement in his article, "If there is digital gold out there somewhere we haven´t heard about it." Well, anyone reading can get on over to GoldMoney.com, Wmtransfer.com (WMG), Loom.cc or iGolder.com and try it out. Stop trying to demonize one of the best digital assets Americans have in the uphill battle to protect their wealth.

"To improve our money system it is neither necessary nor wise to destroy our present system. It is only necessary to produce a better product and to introduce it gradually."--Dr. Edward Popp, "The Great Cookie Jar", 1978

In all fairness I must disclose that I did email Mr. Bob Chapman and he responded saying that I just misunderstood him. After that response, I immediately re-read his article along with Ben Steil´s article(s) and a few others. I think I understand completely. Citizens in today´s world are moving away from the centralized greedy megabanks and towards local, smaller, decentralized level financial playing fields and that usually means gold or silver.

Every concerned citizen I´ve met is angry that their life saving and family nest egg just lost 40% of its value in the past two years. Everyone I meet seems mad that their job was shipped overseas in the past few years because manufacturing is not too expensive to do in the United States. Every person I know is angry at the Congressional big spenders for blowing through $3 Trillion dollars on bailouts and stimulus packages. I believe I understand it completely, it´s crystal. People want sound money.

The advances of today which give us digital gold instead of shiny gold coins for retail commerce should make NO difference in anyone´s ability to recognize honest money. The advantage of using digital gold as money is clear, gold cannot be created with a few keystrokes like excess bank loans. Digital gold gives citizens the ability to protect the population´s wealth just as freshly minted U.S. gold coins did back in 1792.

America was founded on gold and silver money. In previous decades all U.S. money was backed by gold or made of silver. It was good enough for Thomas Jefferson and it is good enough for today´s Americans.

There is nothing wrong with using digital gold currency as money and people like Mr. Chapman need to either rethink their position, clarify their writing and stop spreading rumors.

In the free Internet world, thousands of creative minds have already been building private currencies for more than a decade. Since gold is still considered money as it has been for thousands of years, the use of digital gold will continue to grow as a safe harbor protecting value from the approaching financial storm.

Digital gold currency is the number one monetary advocate for individual rights, privacy and freedom.

Today, there are about a half a dozen states with pending honest money legislation which includes the use of privately issued Digital Gold Currency for commerce and in the collection of taxes and fees. Here is one example from Indiana Honest Money:

Requires the treasurer of state and fiscal officers of political subdivisions to: (1) maintain one or more electronic gold currency accounts with a designated electronic gold currency payment provider; and (2) conduct all monetary transactions of the state or political subdivisions through electronic gold currency accounts. Provides that an electronic gold currency payment provider must use an electronic gold currency unit that constitutes a monetary unit of account and represents a claim of title to and ownership of a specifically defined, fixed weight of gold held by an independent specie vault. Specifies that a specie exchange with which an electronic gold currency payment provider associates must conduct the business of exchanging gold and silver coin, legal tender of the United States, and the electronic gold currency of the electronic gold currency payment provider.

I believe that in the very near future privately issued digital gold will be in much wider use throughout the US and around the world. However, there certainly will not be just one issuer and the gold currency could never originate from a government agency. There will be thousands of different private issuers and brand named Digital Gold Currencies in use protecting citizens wealth and privacy.

America was built on gold and as the United States sails past the $14 Trillion dollar debt level, I am very surprised to see any intelligent person trying to downplay the importance of sound money like Digital Gold Currency. Credit cards and fiat money are much bigger villains.[2]

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About Me

I am an e-Money researcher and a Founding Director of the Bitcoin Foundation. My career has included senior influential posts at Sumitomo Bank, VISA, VeriSign, and Hushmail.

"Free-market protagonists, such as Matonis, regard cybercash as better than traditional government-issued or -regulated money, because it is determined by market forces and thus nonpolitical in nature." --Robert Guttmann, Professor of Economics at Hofstra University, in Cybercash: The Coming Era of Electronic Money, 2002

"Matonis is quite correct that the new technology makes easier the use of multiple private currencies." --Mark Bernkopf, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in "Electronic Cash and Monetary Policy", 1996

"Matonis argues that what is about to happen in the world of money is nothing less than the birth of a new Knowledge Age industry: the development, issuance, and management of private currencies." --Seth Godin in Presenting Digital Cash, 1995